What I love about the Tesla is that it's being built in a factory in England and is being sold out of dealerships in Menlo Park and LA, CA. So, the cars, if they ever do get produced, will be shipped from England on a boat and driven on a truck cross-country to their CA dealerships. So much for reducing that carbon footprint.

DR, that argument is extremely weak.

There's so much stuff being shipping all around the world right now, if we had to make a list of what shouldn't be shipping to save on energy, I think electric cars would be very close to the bottom of the list along with medical equipment.

Tesla is just starting, and making cars is pretty complex. If they found a factory in England, good for them. I wouldn't care if it was in Australia. At least they're doing something that can have big positive impacts and change the whole auto industry. If Tesla only accelerates the mainstreaming of EVs by a single year they'll have done more than most green orgs.

The impact of a car on the environment comes mostly from the fuel it burns, not it's production and shipping (I've seen figures of around 10-15% for that).

That's not too hard to believe when you think abuot.

Take a car that gets 20mpg in the real world, and that is driven 120,000 miles over its whole life.

That's 6,000 gallons of gasoline. Many many times the weight of the car in oil, and at least the metal and battery in the car can be recycled, the oil isn't renewable.

it's not a weak argument when you consider the image Tesla is trying to put forth. Or when you consider that 20 miles away, across the SF Bay from Tesla, is the NUMMI car plant.

And yes, lots of things are shipped all over the world, yet whenever any other company that's trying to portray a green image is found to doing similar things, everyone jumps on them. I guess Tesla gets a pass because it's Green America's poster child for the new generation of electric cars. Let's not dismiss the fact that much of electricity is made with polluting fossil fuels these days.

More weak arguments.

"it's not a weak argument when you consider the image Tesla is trying to put forth."

I guess they care more about results than image.

" Or when you consider that 20 miles away, across the SF Bay from Tesla, is the NUMMI car plant."

You think that making automobiles is so simple that you can just get anything done at any plant of your choice within your specs and cost parameters?

I don't know that much about making cars, but I know it's probably one of the biggest logistical nightmares around, with extremely capital expensive operations and very large regulatory costs.

I also know that to make possible what they're doing, Tesla has a partnership with Lotus. That's probably the England connection.

"And yes, lots of things are shipped all over the world, yet whenever any other company that's trying to portray a green image is found to doing similar things, everyone jumps on them. I guess Tesla gets a pass because it's Green America's poster child for the new generation of electric cars."

I guess people can just understand that if we wait for something perfect, we'll never get it.

Sure it would be better if Tesla's were made next door to my house for when I will buy one (probably the third model, eh). But this isn't a dream world. Things aren't perfect, but I'm sure glad there are some people working on hard problems like creating desirable production EVs.

" Let's not dismiss the fact that much of electricity is made with polluting fossil fuels these days."

Yeah, and that even considering that, EVs are still much cleaner than internal combustion engines. And that as the grid gets cleaner, EVs will get cleaner. And that most of them will be charged at night, when lots of electricity is grounded anyway (coal plants can't shut down during the night, they're too long to start back up.) And in many other parts of the world, it's possible to sign up for clean power, or default power comes from hydro, etc.

Hey, DR, there are some of us who don't live in the SF Bay area, you know. Unless you propose Tesla have factories every 40 miles around the world, I'm not sure what your point is. They had to pick a place, and Europe is also a market. Plus I bet the average factory worker in the UK has a shorter commute than they would in the SF Bay area.

By the way, even with fossil-fuel electricity, electrics are better because electric motors are far, far more efficient than reciprocating engines. Power generation steam or gas trubines run at optimum constant speed and do not have reciprocating parts, nor do they use fuel to merely idle.

But of course the whole point is to shift to renewable electricity and complete the circle that locks out fossil fuel even from cars. And that would be a major, major achievement. I wish Tesla the best.

The NUMMI plant? Really? Because Tesla is trying to build a mid-eighties Chevy Nova?

"Um, Toyota, excuse me, I know we want to be your competitors and all, but will you please build our state of the art electric roadster in your old joint venture plant? I'm sure you can squeeze it in right next to the Pontiac Vibes. KTNXBI."

Dude, if you wanna talk about cars, know shit about cars. Lotus is an engineering company that makes a few cars. The NUMMI plant is a Toyota manufacturing plant. Tesla went to Lotus for automotive engineering expertise. Do you really think Toyota would have built this car for them? Will they always build their cars in old blighty? Only if geniuses like you continue to make the perfect the enemy of the good and keep the company from those economies of scale that will allow them to build whereever they want.

if we dont start making electric vechicles then your whining about carbon foot print will always be afoot. get transport green and eventually the transport and contruction will be green.

i cant wait for them to get to australia, which unfortunately we will be the last on the list unless we have the same standards as UK or Japan.

im just so glad its only 100K which in my books is radically cheap for what it presents. this car is actually obtainable for me. and its long service interval and expections to last means its worth saving your pennies for. unlike bmw's that kill you on servicing. its just the insurance that will sting.

it will be good to see the competition react to this.

elon is super cool, he is living his dream and thriving from it.

DR, its most obvious that you actually do not possess a PHD of any sort. Or if you do, or if God forbid you are a medical doctor, the system needs to be changed.

If you took even a moment to do the slightest reading up on Tesla, you'd see they are building their manufacturing plant near Albuquerque in order to produce the White Star and other upcoming models. Sheesh, it amazes me how people like you are so thrilled with putting their foot in their mouth, then happily leaving it there.

Oh, here's something to make your pea brain explode: 99% of everything surrounding you as you read this was made from oil which was not extracted in North America. Get s friggin clue, or get lost.

the best car

>I guess they care more about results than image.

Actually, if they cared more about results, they wouldn't be taking 3 years to roll a car off the production line into the hands of the 1st non-company customer. The reason they unveiled the car years ago WAS to put their name out there and to build an image. In the time they've been taking, they could easily have also looked into alternate building facilities and locations.

>You think that making automobiles is so simple that you can just get anything done at any plant of your choice within your specs and cost parameters?

Hmm, let's see if Tesla wants to be the revolutionary car company they claim to be, then you'd think they would put forth the effort. There are other plants and building facilities that are a lot closer than 7000 miles from California. And with an estimated output of 1000 cars/year, the retrofitting of the small portion of an existing factory would not be difficult -- this is exactly what they're doing already at the Lotus factory in England where the Teslas are being constructed -- even shipping a single container with enough smaller parts for 500 cars would be more efficient than the number of containers needed to ship 500 fully built cars. The car already costs $100k and isn't targeted to the average Joe, so extra costs incurred from a factory retrofit could easily be passed on to the wanna-be trendy millionaires on the list. Additionally, wouldn't it be even better to give jobs to American workers and keep even more money in the US? Why would you want to kill two birds with one stone?

>I don't know that much about making cars, but I know it's probably one of the biggest logistical nightmares around, with extremely capital expensive operations and very large regulatory costs.

Considering the relatively low number of cars Tesla plans on producing, it's not a nightmare. There are a surprisingly large number of smaller "boutique" car builders and coachbuilders in the US which outsource work to smaller factories, and Tesla could do the same thing if they wanted.

>I guess people can just understand that if we wait for something perfect, we'll never get it.

Who said anything about perfection? If we were waiting for perfection out of the Tesla, production in England would be the least of our worries -- the Tesla has a lot more issues which make it far from perfect.

>Sure it would be better if Tesla's were made next door to my house for when I will buy one (probably the third model, eh). But this isn't a dream world. Things aren't perfect, but I'm sure glad there are some people working on hard problems like creating desirable production EVs.

It doesn't have to be built next door to you, but again, there are a lot more factories that could churn out a low number of 1000 cars/year that aren't in England. You of course refuse to want to acknowledge this. As for creating a desirable EV, you could just buy a Lotus and have one of the hundreds of geniuses that have been retrofitting cars and turning them into EVs in their garages make you that desirable EV. Although, not sure why a 2 person "sports" EV that can't get more than a 90 mile range when it's used in a sporty way would be desirable. A 4-5 person EV with a 300 mile range would be a desirable EV. I guess they just made the Roadster for that image they don't seem to care about.

>Yeah, and that even considering that, EVs are still much cleaner than internal combustion engines. And that as the grid gets cleaner, EVs will get cleaner. And that most of them will be charged at night, when lots of electricity is grounded anyway (coal plants can't shut down during the night, they're too long to start back up.) And in many other parts of the world, it's possible to sign up for clean power, or default power comes from hydro, etc.

Ah, but the problem is as more electric cars get on the grid and demand for electricity increases, new power plants will have to be rushed into production. Ask yourself what type of power plants are easy and fast to build that can supply the enormous amount of energy that will be required for all these new cars. I'm sure electricity strapped California will rush to build more complicated clean energy production facilities.

DR, you are a silly little crank. Worse, you're not even good at being a crank. A good crank takes at least accurate facts and then uses them improperly to backup his cranckish stance. You are simply saying things that equate to "1+1=3".

Be gone.

hahahahaha i've been refreshing this post all day. its awesome laughs. i love you clowns are arguing about a company that is green enough or can be even more green. no brainer peeps!!! if tesla or any company has room to be more green they should be more green. if tesla has to ship this car from asia or europe or whatever then they better use an ecofriendly transporting company and ecofriendy methods. amazing to see a day when treehugger readers no longer say someone or some company isnt green enugh.

>The NUMMI plant? Really? Because Tesla is trying to build a mid-eighties Chevy Nova?

The NUMMI plant has won many quality awards and knowing people who work there, I would say they would be more than competent to work the assembly line. You seem to think that a factory or part of a factory cannot be retrofitted to build different types of cars.

>"Um, Toyota, excuse me, I know we want to be your competitors and all, but will you please build our state of the art electric roadster in your old joint venture plant? I'm sure you can squeeze it in right next to the Pontiac Vibes. KTNXBI."

The NUMMI plant is an example of a closer building location, one of many that Tesla could use if they were interested in using an existing operational location. Plus you make it sound as if competing companies don't accept money from each other -- look at BMW and Mercedes with the MINI engine. When it comes to the greening of our vehicles, there is also the possibility of getting more advancement from co-operation rather than competition.

>Dude, if you wanna talk about cars, know shit about cars. Lotus is an engineering company that makes a few cars. The NUMMI plant is a Toyota manufacturing plant. Tesla went to Lotus for automotive engineering expertise. Do you really think Toyota would have built this car for them? Will they always build their cars in old blighty? Only if geniuses like you continue to make the perfect the enemy of the good and keep the company from those economies of scale that will allow them to build whereever they want.

NUMMI is a GM and Toyota plant. And so you know, Tesla is owned by the Malaysian company Proton. Would Toyota build the car for them? Who knows given Toyota's interest in Hybrid technology, but in terms of engineering and reliability, if you knew shit about cars, I think I'd rather ask for help from a Japanese company that has built cars that routinely can last into the 100-200k mile range with little problems over the British company that made the non-reliable Esprit.

>DR, its most obvious that you actually do not possess a PHD of any sort. Or if you do, or if God forbid you are a medical doctor, the system needs to be changed.

Actually, the medical system has long needed to be changed due to insurance and other regulations, but I'm sure that it will be even harder to change than people's view of Tesla.

>If you took even a moment to do the slightest reading up on Tesla, you'd see they are building their manufacturing plant near Albuquerque in order to produce the White Star and other upcoming models. Sheesh, it amazes me how people like you are so thrilled with putting their foot in their mouth, then happily leaving it there.

Exactly my point. Why wait until the Whitestar? Why not start into it now and begin building Roadsters there? With the delay in Roadster production they could have constructed a facility there already. Or they could have used one of the many abandoned car factories in the US already if building from scratch was an issue. Isn't the Green movement also about recycling and finding new uses for old or abandoned things?

>Oh, here's something to make your pea brain explode: 99% of everything surrounding you as you read this was made from oil which was not extracted in North America. Get s friggin clue, or get lost.

Which proves my point also -- why not make Tesla go MORE green to help bring that 99% down instead of letting them half-ass it. We'll never get such numbers down if we don't force the issue and make companies go to the greenest they can.

>DR, you are a silly little crank. Worse, you're not even good at being a crank. A good crank takes at least accurate facts and then uses them improperly to backup his cranckish stance. You are simply saying things that equate to "1+1=3".

Actually, the silly little cranks were the people from the Home Owners Association that came to me in 1984 telling me to remove the solar water heaters and panels I had on my home's roof, because they felt it was an eyesore. I refused as I owned my home before their HOA was in existence. I'm not one of these bandwagon, trend following greenies; I've been into the movement for the long haul and know that it takes big steps to make an impact. Heck, I even took a tour of Tesla about a year ago. As Anna Nomenus points out, why is it a sin to ask a company to be more green? Although, I disagree with her thought on an "eco-friendly transport company." I'm sure if one existed, Fuji Water would have made it up a long time ago.

I am very happy to see Tesla begin production, in England.

The European sports car feel is a big part of this success story, as is the ultra-green car. I expect this car to be sold in Europe as soon as production can be ramped up. It would be no surprise to see Kate & Prince William driving one in London, or to see a few on the German autobahn.

And to those who DR have a clue, ... the USA is not the center of the world, there is life beyond your local border.

I just hope this car company will soon be able to make a car I can afford, even if they need to make it in China.

Nummi (Toyota/GM) is not likely to help Tesla build a car. I'm speculating here but Nummi is likely a mass production facility not really aimed at building a niche quantity of vehicles. I feel certain that the Tesla will be hand assembled and all they are going to need is a small factory with plenty of room for containers/pallets of parts. The can likely setup a very rudimentary push style assembly line.

Also I doubt GM and Toyota would help the competition. I also doubt Tesla would want to show that much of their design to those companies. Lotus is well suited for small batches of cars.

The cost of developing a car is really amazing. I am hugely impressed that they have been able to do this on their budget. Sometime when you have a chance look up what the big 3 spend only on platform engineering (engineering the chassis). Here Tesla is do all that and more with the Elise as a pattern. Think about all the custom rubber parts (weather striping, rubber bushings), plastic parts (whole interior), etc etc. And then the whole certification process to get it to pass DOT regs (crash test, emissions paperwork proving it is an EV, etc etc).

They are not likely to have alot of spare man hours to spend on the White Star and since they have not officially delivered their first vehicle, their budget is prob still lean.

They'll get better with time. Baby steps. I'm willing to cut any start up company a little slack on something like transportation costs. If this really gets your goat then let's get you stationed outside of VW, Toyota, GM, Ford, Chrysler, etc etc etc dealerships b/c they've been doing that for decades with products that spend their whole life making pollution and consuming oil.

I'm anxious for a $25K Corolla/Civic type family car that we can use around town. The Smart is neat but not very family friendly. The Mini would work fine too. We currently have a VW Cabrio and a CR-V.

The Tesla is smokin awesome!

It is an uncompromising sports vehicule that rewrites the book on performance with brilliant style (Lotus style!), and creates a new green industry in the process.
Their aim is to build a family sedan EV next, and then the econo car EV.
The sports car gets it all started, opens eyes to the possibilities, gets the assembly line going, gets the dealer network up and running, and then makes the family sedan possible, and so on.

I have no problem with any aspect that I see. My feeling is more power and Godspeed (well, they Have that!) to them!

If you are so concerned with shipping- then pay for carbon offsets for Your Tesla. But don't condemn the whole enterprise, which I see bringing great fruits to the Green realm, as they progress.

Look at what Tesla is doing in the big picture- they are creating the Greenest auto company ever, attempting to make the most sustainable green line of EV cars ever seen. Of highest quality. And they are up against some heavyweights in the field.

Detroit wouldn't have it, though that was where Tesla turned first. Because the car is so electronic, with dozens of computer processors aboard, and an electric power source- it was a bad fit for Detroit- and a good fit for Silicone Valley. New Mexico is a great spot, too, as it is along the Silicon corridor (Texas to California), and more central for distribution, and better costs.

Which makes it better for us, because Tesla escapes the oil industry corruptions inherent with Detroit.
Who paid for the Climate Change nay-sayers, after all? And set the Green movement backwards 8 years?
Exxon, king of oil. Evil, pure and simple.
And their hand is on Detroit. Squashing CAFE MPG standards.
Their hand is on Toyota, too!
Why does the Prius (which I drive) have No EV switch here in the US, yet is offered everywhere else- Europe, Japan, CANADA even! With the EV switch as Standard!!!
EVIL!, or I mean profits, of course.

And by going it alone, albeit on a small scale at first, Tesla gets a clean and sober, Oil addiction free, Green start. Bravo!

I love it. Go Tesla Go!